


Havelock's Web

by thestuffedalligator



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2019-10-01 03:41:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17236715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thestuffedalligator/pseuds/thestuffedalligator
Summary: There is a strange habit observed among spiders in the rural stretches of the Discworld, wherein they will, for no observable reason, decide to save some pitiful animal bound for the slaughterhouse.On a related note, Patrician Moist von Lipwig must deal with his daughter, his city, and the overhanging question of: Why Him?





	1. Forty Hippos

There is a strange habit observed among spiders in the rural stretches of the Discworld.

Upon reaching the end of its life, a spider will suddenly abandon its web and seek out the nearest farm and an animal therein bound for the slaughterhouse. Upon finding both of these, it will spin a web above the animal’s pen, spinning into it words of vain, hollow praise such as ‘great’ or ‘wonderful.’ Adoration and cries of divine intervention shortly follow, and the animal, through no effort of its own, is made into such a celebrity that it is saved from the slaughterhouse.

Nobody quite knows what the spider gets out of this. A leading theory, among others involving pity or egg sacs, is that the spider simply enjoys dying with the knowledge that the animal* will drive itself crazy wondering why it, above any other beast in the farmyard, was chosen to survive.

* _Often a pig, though the same behaviour has also been observed above goat pens, chicken coops, and at least one Klatchian camel farmer has found the words ‘_ jayidat mae alrriadiat _’** over the pen of an otherwise unremarkable dromedary._

** _‘Good with math’. Spiders are more observant than most._

***

The job, to Moist von Lipwig’s total lack of surprise, came with a hat.

He turned the thing over in his hands in the quiet of his office. It closely resembled the style of hat which back in Überwald had been called a homburg, except that the brim was much wider and seemed to be designed with flopping in mind, so that it looked like a bit like a wizard’s hat with a stunted cone.

It was gold. This shouldn’t have bothered Moist, not only since it meant that he didn’t have to change his wardrobe any time soon, but even the colour was enough to stir up the silt of concern in his river of thought.

The first concerning thing was… well, if Moist was to add an addendum to ‘all that glitters is not gold’, it would be that gold, real gold, did not glitter at all. It didn’t have to. It was confident enough to not advertise. Fake gold glittered, however, because it needed a little push, and because people expected it to. Moist knew this well enough to apply it to his line of work. It had followed him into the post office, the mint, and even the tax office: show people a bit of glitter, and they’d follow you to the moon and back.

That was the first concerning thing about the hat. It didn’t glitter as much as it gleamed. It  _glowed_  gold, the heavy, dark sort of colour that didn’t mind shadows because they only made the glow more real, and didn’t have to ask for attention because it already sat in the center of a personal solar system. He’d once heard that spinning straw into gold was a talent among young women up in the Ramtops, but this seemed to be gold spun into wool and then spun into thread, which was probably more impressive, and undoubtedly terrifyingly expensive.

The second concerning thing about it was the thin, black hat band, which coiled around the hat like a viper.

It had been kept, in the best tradition of obvious hiding places, in a safe behind the portrait of Lord Samphire in the Oblong Office, and cobwebs had shattered dramatically as the door had swung open. There were still cobwebs on it, in fact. He peeled the strands off and rolled them between his fingers as he thought.

So far, the map of his thoughts was shaping up like this:

1: Vetinari had this hat made for him. The gold was enough of a hint, but the black hat band cinched it. That was just the sort of thing that would’ve amused him.

2: Vetinari had this hat made long enough ago that it had served as the center of an extremely localized spider industry for a while.

These added together to make 3: Vetinari had planned on giving Moist this hat for a long time – and if, as Drumknott insisted, this was the hat for the job, that only meant that he wanted to give Moist the job that came with it for a while, too.

Moist flicked the ball of cobweb off from his fingers. No matter how he parsed it, it always added up to the sum that Vetinari had planned on making Moist his successor as Patrician for a long time, and Moist had only found out when Vetinari passed away two weeks ago.

 _That’s_  what made the hat terrifying. It was the lonely bit of iceberg that sat on top of the water, a signal that a massive chunk of politics chilled in the depths of the unseen, trailing along the ocean floor, carving canyons into the geography of history.

How long had Vetinari planned on making Moist the next Patrician? While he was working with the Tax Office? The train? The Mint? The Post Office?

Or was it decided the moment that Albert Spangler stepped up to the gallows, all those years ago?

And why  _him_?

He was pulled out of his thoughts by a cough. He looked over the desk at Drumknott, who had materialized across the desk with a bundle of papers and a patient expression.

“The late morning reports, my lord,” Drumknott said, proffering the bundle.

Moist sighed as he took it. Reports, reports, and more reports. It seemed that being Patrician was nothing but reports. More movements of the Forty Hippos* and other assorted complaints about civic operations. Distantly, he was aware of Drumknott saying: “More pressingly, you have a meeting at eleven with the members of the Council of Government Services.”

The corners of Moist’s mouth crinkled as he flipped through the pages. You had to make your own entertainment in this business. “I’m sorry, I don’t quite remember that department. Is it called anything else?”

Drumknott looked pained. “The Privy, my lord.”

“Oh right, that’s the one!” Moist said, grinning sunshine. “Can’t imagine how I forgot. Thank you, Drumknott, is there anything else?”

Drumknott, if it were at all possible, seemed to become a little stiffer. “Ah - yes, I’m sorry to say,” he said, taking a tiny slip of paper from his breast pocket. “My lord, I’m afraid she’s been spotted again.”

Moist sighed and held up a hand while he stared at the ceiling. “Don’t tell me,” he said. “Let me guess… Hubwards up Filigree Street, then into Fog Alley. Then five minutes later, a mime with very hastily applied makeup exited the Fool’s Guild, horrified passersby into not noticing her, and then pulled an invisible rope leading her into the Post Office.”

Drumknott glanced down at the paper. “Almost exactly, my lord.”

“Are you serious? Half of that was a joke.”

“Your insight into the machinations of the criminal mind are, as usual, exemplary, my lord.”

“Hm.” Moist glanced at the clock. “I can squeeze her in before I have to go to the Privy. Have a couple watchmen bring her around to the Palace, would you? I’d like to have a word with her.”

“Right away, my lord. Shall I inform Lady Lipwig?”

“What? After last time? Definitely not.”

As Drumknott padded out of the room, Moist turned back to look out the window to the Post Office. This was the third time this month, and she was getting that desperate edge to creativity that eventually led to disguising oneself with a giant fish head. It would’ve been admirable if it wasn’t so annoying.

After all, he’d certainly never act this way to his parents, so why should Demeanor von Lipwig**?

*  _An all-woman gang of unlicensed thieves. It had thirty-nine members, but because one of them was the troll Zirconia, who was twice as massive as any hippo ever could be, the number was increased in the interest of fairness._

** _This is a line of thinking that all parents abide to, often connected to the phrase, “Well, when_ I _was your age…”. This is also known as ‘Lying through your teeth’._


	2. Stanleymon

Demeanor von Lipwig* scrubbed the whiteface off in the employee restroom. It wasn’t a very good disguise, but time had been short, and Dad had watchmen patrolling Broadway to watch out for her.

That hardly seemed fair. The last time she had managed to get back to the city, she was barely able to get through the gates before she was caught. And keeping watchmen around to guard the city from a thirteen-year-old girl was…

Well, it’d be ridiculous if it wasn’t _her_.

She grabbed the greasy handtowel, wiped off the straggling bits of makeup, and stared into the face looking back at her through the mirror.

It is a rare and tragic thing when children envy their parents. Demeanor – Mina, to her friends and family, as well as anyone else who found it awkward to refer to her as ‘Miss Demeanor’ – was one of the two people she knew that suffered from it. The only other one she knew of, and probably the one who was more justified in her envy, was Penny Ironfoundersson, who would spend days contriving ways for her mother to accidentally bite her so that she could also become a werewolf.

In Mina's case, it was her face. Dad, by some trick of genetics, had a totally unremarkable face. Most people didn't recognize it until long after he'd left a room, but Mina spotted it like a jeweler spotting a weakness in a diamond. It was the ultimate tool for a conman. It was a face that could vanish into the crowd, and then reappear an hour later with a false moustache on.

Mina’s face, to her dismay, was cute. It was a face that people _wanted_ to remember, and, regrettably, not because they wanted to finally put their spare tar and feathers to good use. This was especially true among boys**. She’d found some shortcuts around being recognized in the street, but it took nothing short of breaking Rupert de Worde’s nose when she was eleven to finally spread the gospel of Don’t Recognize Me to the boys of Ankh-Morpork***.

She tossed the towel back onto its pin and walked back out into the bustling main hall of the Post Office. She’d figure out a better way around the Watch. But for now, she breathed in the Post Office. The smell of paper. The sound of scratching pens, the musical march of the golem postmen. She saluted one she recognized as Campanile 2 and walked backwards through the little door marked Employees Only. Her eyes scanned the milling bodies until she spotted the one with the apron that said: ASK ME ABOUT STAMPS.

“Stanley!”

A lopsided grin broke across Stanley’s face. “Hullo, Miss Lipwig! Have you come about the coronation stamps?” He cracked open the binder he had tucked under his arm and flipped to a gleaming page. “We’re having a devil of a time with them. Mister Lipwig says its because we should stop trying to use the gold ink, but we all agree that we should only have the best for Mister Lipwig! Besides, it makes for so many wonderful misprints and defects! Have a look!”

Mina laughed. “Stanley, is Dad having you work already? You only got back from Agatea last week!”

“Yes, but as soon as we finish the coronation stamps, the sooner we can start translating the newest set of…” He waggled his eyebrows and dropped his voice into what he probably considered a conspiratorial tone. “You-know-what.”

She glanced around at the sea of workers to look like she was checking for eavesdroppers. “Do you have them already?” she stage-whispered.

Stanley cracked open a smaller, thinner ledger from under his armpit to show the designs within. They were, technically, stamps, in that they were drawings that had been stamped onto bits of cardboard. Despite the technicality, she doubted that attaching a cartoon of an electrified, yellow pig with a thunderbolt-shaped tail to a letter would guarantee postage anywhere out of the city, despite what the enthusiasts insisted about their value.

The newest run of Stanleymon cards. Mina stared. Her hand traced the page, feeling the edges of cardboard through the onionskin. “Stanley,” she breathed, “they’re gorgeous.” She lifted her hand and wiggled her fingers over the page like a squid agonizing over which fish looked the most appetizing. “I don’t suppose-”

The binder closed with a snap. Stanley grinned and tapped the side of his nose. “Ah-ah, you can wait with the rest of ‘em, Miss Lipwig! No fun in having an unfair advantage, is there?”

She smiled wanly. “I suppose not. Have a good day, Stanley!”

When he was gone, Mina reached into her sleeve and pulled out the shimmering pieces of cardboard. Magnificent – and still in the untranslated Agatean. That made it exclusive. Dave would pay a very pretty penny, and a very handsome dollar, for something like this.

A voice behind her said, “Fancy dip that was, but I don’t reckon the Thieves’ Guild would be quite as impressed.”

Mina whipped around and looked up. She readjusted and looked down into the face of the little golden man hunched over his walking stick.

She felt the smile break across her face. “Granddad Groat!” She wrapped her arms around the skinny frame, sending up a cloud of bizarre smells. Grandparents are often accompanied with strange smells, but Granddad’s particular musk was very… _there_. It was must, and spice, and the stink of hospitals all wrapped into an eye-stinging cloud.

Granddad laughed. “I reckoned it was you, Ms. Mina! But I thought you was at that fancy school for girls out in Quirm!”

She beamed as she pulled back to face him. He, dressed in the oversized golden suit and hat with wings, beamed considerably brighter, but she made the effort nonetheless. “I’m back home for the weekend!”

He squinted. “It’s Tuesday.”

Mina swatted her hand through the air. “Nuance. Not important at all, really.”

Granddad laughed again at this. “Well, I have a meeting with the Privy in about fifteen minutes, but I can always—" He stopped. The look on his face told Mina that the penny had finally dropped. “Stone the crows, Mina, what have you done with your hair?”

Mina ran a hand through her hair. “What, this?” she asked in a tone of innocence that whiffed only slightly of recitation. “Oh, right. One of the students put a wad of gum in my hair, so I just had it cut.”

That was true, although the student had been herself. She also didn’t mention that this was one of her shortcuts around having a cute face, and how short hair could throw off even the Watch on a good day. While a young, scrawny boy may have swindled Piggy Bardolph's Stanleymon stamps, she was just an innocent young gel minding her own business, sir. Then she could pout, or cry, or just generally make everyone around her feel awkward enough to let her continue walking to Dave's Collectibles and Novelty Exchange, where she’d walk out seven dollars richer than she was that morning.

There wasn't any real point to it. Her parents gave her an allowance, and she really didn't need the money. But there was a rush to it, a cold, tingling feeling of standing on the edge of a very tall building. She wondered sometimes if this was how Dad felt back when he did this sort of thing, as it were, professionally, rather than as a career.

Granddad gave her a funny look that suggested he didn’t totally trust this, but he winked. “Right,” he said. "Well, I've got some wonderful stuff for hair restorin', if you'd like to try it."

“This one’s new,” she said once they had made it up to Granddad’s office, picking up a little bottle of clear liquid. It was still, officially, the Postmaster’s office, but Granddad’s reign had seen it slowly change into something more like one of the labs from the University. Pots and bottles filled the counters, which were stained from years of tinctures and frothing potions, and a mortar and pestle sat next to the ink well. Shrivelled wedges of lemon sat next to the open tin of goose grease. A fat red onion sat in the wire bin labelled ‘To Do’.

“Glyceryl trinitrate,” said Granddad with surprising eloquence. “Wonderful stuff, prevents chest pains and keeps the blood pressure down. Vitrola bought the recipe from an alchemist chap.”

Mina held the bottle a little further away at that. Vitrola, the new Mrs. Groat, had introduced the wonderful world of alchemy to Granddad’s life, while in the same stroke removing half the stableyard and the roof from one of the letter sorting offices.

She put it back down next to the saucepan with the purplish-green stain. She cleared her throat. “Actually, Granddad, I was wondering if I could stay here in the Post Office for a couple days?”

Granddad paused in the act of sorting and quirked an eyebrow. “Problems with them posh rooms up in the palace?” he asked.

Mina considered her possible responses. The first one was, “Besides the fact that I’m not supposed to be in Ankh-Morpork for the next three weeks? No.” The second one, unpacking itself just as quickly, was “Yes, the rooms are too godsdamned big and I’ll be damned if I sleep somewhere where the sound of clerks scuttling through the halls is supposed to be comforting.”

She settled on, “The bedrooms are being sprayed for pests.”

“Rats?”

“Ghosts,” Mina thought. “Silverfish,” she said.

Granddad squinted again, wrestling with some internal conflict. Finally, he shrugged and went back to digging through the bottles and jars. “Well, we have no problem budging up here and finding something for you tonight!” He pulled out a little tin that looked like it had once held sardines. He opened it, sniffed the tacky-looking wax inside, and nodded. “It’ll be just like them old days, when your father used to drop you off here for the—”

Granddad stopped and looked at a spot several feet above Mina’s head.

“Oh,” he said. “Hallo, sir! Sam Vimes, is it?”

Mina felt a rough leather glove tighten over her shoulder, and not coincidentally felt her heart drop into her stomach. “Yes indeed, sir,” said a voice up above her. “Would you mind if I tore young Mina away for a moment?”

Mina slowly turned to look above her. The Honourable Corporal Samuel Vimes the Second looked down and said, “Her father would like to have a word with her.”

She groaned. It really hadn’t been a very good disguise.

* _Named in the same social myopia that produced both ‘Moist’ and ‘Adora Belle’. Neither of them had realized what they had done until Drumknott had called her ‘Miss Demeanor’ during a banquet with the Klatchian embassy. Moist’s scream of horror was something that would haunt Prince Qahfe’s dreams until his dying day._

** _Also to her dismay, but for reasons that she would not understand for a while._

*** _There had been a row after that; Dad had scolded her for using violence, Mom had scolded her for using her fists instead of putting her ballet lessons to good use and serving him a proper_ grand battement _, and it was weeks until the Times wrote about Dad in a positive light again. In Rupert’s case, it only made him more obsessed than before._


End file.
